Week 11 (10-16 September)

                                                                             

We had a beautiful week of learning and good times with missionaries from 3 zones.  This means 88 missionary interviews and 2 temple interviews with pre-field missionaries for Benoit. For the beginning of the week we stayed in Port Vila.  We tried to leave for New Caledonia on Thursday but our flight was changed to one hour earlier and we did not receive any notifications.  Note to self:  Always verify flight status  night before.  This is how it works with Air Vanuatu.  An international flight check-in begins two hours before departure time and ends one hour before departure.  We got to the airport two hours before a flight leaving at 10:50 originally.  The airport is empty, no one is at the counter.  When we ask the information desk, the lady tells us we are too late.  The flight was changed to 9:50 am.  It is about 9:10 by this time and we know the plane is on the tarmac.  But we cannot check our bags because they already started loading the luggage onto the airplane.  The missionaries are expecting us for interviews and Mission Leadership Council.  Oh well, change of plans.  We left the airport to go to the travel agency, because you cannot make these changes at the airport.  No that is not the place to do that.  😕😒😓We were happy to be able to change our flight for the next day, Friday when we got to the travel agency about twenty minutes away from the airport. 😏 I figured there was a good reason for all of this, besides learning to be patient, flexible and go with the island flow of things. It turned out we were needed at the office and most importantly we finally got to speak with Etienne and see our little Leah who had a birthday while we were away last week.

We loved being with the missionaries this week being serious and being silly.

 We had a hard time erasing the dry eraser board, then Elder Richards realized the plastic on it had not been removed.  😏

I am not sitting on a chair but just leaning on the wall.  Good exercise for my thighs.  A good thing too with all the rich food I had in New Caledonia!

 In New Caledonia, we have a zone leader, Elder Tetuaiterai, who loves to take pictures with our phone.  If we leave our phone laying around, we find all kinds of crazy pictures of him with other missionaries on it when we get home.  😁Can you guess who Elder Tetuaiterai is?

Where we go for lunch with the missionaries during zone conference in Port Vila, we saw some fishermen walking in the water with a net to catch fishes.  We could not help thinking of the scripture:
"And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Matthew 4:19

We love being with the members of New Caledonia also.  Just before we left to come back home today, we had a good lunch with the stake president, his family and the assistants.  They have such a wonderful garden of fruit trees at the back of their home, a real garden of Eden.

It is time to go to bed now our heads and hearts filled with great memories of beautiful places and people.  Love to all!